The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus in which operations for establishing (inputting) and changing setting values in regard to various kinds of setting items can be performed through a single screen or a plurality of screens.
A certain information processing apparatus, such as a printer, a copier, etc., is provided with a lot of setting items in regard to an apparatus and a job. When performing operations for establishing (inputting) and changing setting values in regard to the lot of setting items through a single screen or a plurality of screens, if a number of setting items to be displayed on the single screen is too large, or various kinds of setting items are displayed over the plurality of screens, sometimes, the user consumes much time to conduct the operations for selecting the setting items and for establishing and changing the setting values in regard to the setting items concerned.
To overcome the abovementioned problem, for instance, Tokkaihei 11-342660 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication) sets forth such the technology that investigates the changing history of each of the setting items when the user instruct the printer to display the setting screen, and displays the setting items in descending order of changing frequency so as to make it easy for the user to select the setting item desired.
However, according to the technology set forth by Tokkaihei 11-342660, the setting items are displayed merely in order of the changing frequency in the past. For instance, in such an operation that the user intends to again change some of the setting items after the user has completed the operation for establishing the setting items as a whole in advance, since such the operation is not implemented in the state that none of the setting items have been established, it is impossible to preferentially display the specific setting items to be changed by the user, even if the setting items are preferentially displayed in descending order of changing frequency in the past. Therefore, even if the technology set forth by Tokkaihei 11-342660 is applied to the operation for changing the specific setting items after the operation for establishing the setting items has been completed as a whole, there has been a problem that it is impossible to make it easy for the user to perform the operation for changing the specific setting items.